Writer’s Police Academy 2023: Part 3

My alarm went off at 6am and my roommate had already left for breakfast. All I wanted was coffee so I dressed, loaded my backpack for the day and headed downstairs. By 7:20 we were on the three school buses and headed to Northeast Wisconsin Technical College for day one activities.

First up was a SWAT team demo involving an uncooperative suspect who wouldn’t get out of his car. We all sat or stood on the grassy hill to watch (a safe distance from flying items). It was interesting, informative, funny (thanks to the suspect who kept us laughing), and concluded safely. Note, the K9 dog belongs to the suspect in real life. I took several videos, one very long one (with some rough language, just like real life), and a final one where I couldn’t see what I was recording and didn’t catch all the action. Because of the language used, I will post the links here: Video One, Video Two, Video Three (language and a long video), Video Four (poor line-up but you do see the dog capture the suspect).

From there we headed for coffee, water, and restrooms before out first session. Mine was K9 Emergency Aid. Our instructors were Dr. Lisa Converse and Vet Tech, Lyn Schuh, the founders of the Operational K9 Medical Team.

There were three real dogs (personally owned and used for training) and one dummy dog. The dummy dog could be used to show how to treat many injuries. It could bark, whine, spurt blood, and more.

We learned about the most common injuries in working dogs (all services) as well as pets. Dehydration and suffocation were at the top of the list. For working dogs, dehydration could be from the heat in a car (always left engine & a/c running with an emergency backup system to notify the officer if something happens), or working too long. A dog who is tracking or searching, will go till they collapse if not stopped.

I read this news article just days after coming home.

Putting an oxygen mask on a dog isn’t like putting one on a human so we learned how to get it done – what to do and more importantly, what not to do. We learned that Narcan that is used for drug overdoses in humans is also used for dogs that are exposed. Fentanyl use is rampant and deadly.

Suffocation in pets is most often caused by a foreign object in the throat. Dogs that love to chase balls all too often get them caught in the back of the throat and can’t breath. We saw videos of how to lay them on their back, extend their heads, and push the ball upward till it pops out. They highly recommend using balls that are attached to something. They showed one like this one from Amazon. It can be used with the popular Chuck-it systems but easily pulled out of a dog’s throat. NOTE – there is NO Heimlich maneuver for dogs, regardless of what you might see on the Internet!

They also showed us how to do CPR on a dog. It’s quite fast and yes, just like with people, you may crack ribs. Always put the dog’s spine against your legs.

You can see all the photos for this session HERE.

The next session was A Coroner’s Life, taught by Curtis Green of the Manitowoc County Coroner’s Office, but we weren’t allowed to take any photos during the presentation. I did learn a little but most of what was shared was Wisconsin-centric.

After a nice catered lunch, we went to our final sessions. Mine was Crime Scene Investigation and the instructors were Dan Feucht and Holly Maas. It was fantastic! Again, no photos except for the various items on display that are used in investigations. We went over our time (as did the two previous sessions of this class) and I think we all could have sat through an all-day class.

Each table got to make a handprint (think big fingerprint) and take it home. Volunteers also got to dress in the Tyvek® suits, caps, and gloves the investigators have to wear while at crime scenes.

And…I did learn something that will be in an upcoming book….nope, not telling you what it is!

Sessions done for the day, it was back on the school bus where we had a stark reminder of what we’d seen so far.

Dinner was on our own and the presentation was about Jeffrey Dahmer and I opted out. I heard the next day that I was the smart one.

Coming up in Part 4 – day two of classes.